Vianna Davila: The trail of red

The business of police work is complicated, to say the least. Investigators use details  from strands of hair to witness accounts to corresponding fingerprint swirls  to piece together a crime.

Usually, the victim is the most telling part of the equation, whether dead or alive.

Then there is the occasional crime where police find all the elements of the crime but no victim at all.

This is the case for San Antonio Police Department Officer Rockey Escobedo one Sunday morning.

His day started innocently enough, with a stop at a Chevron station on Fredericksburg Road to pick up his usual morning cup of coffee. But with one glance at the ground, Escobedo spotted a flash of red blood on the concrete and thus stumbled onto a potential crime scene.

He followed the ribbon of blood spots, which snaked alongside the building, a trail of breadcrumbs to what? Well, nothing except more questions. The trail led him behind the store to where the ground suddenly drops off and slopes down toward an apartment complex. He traced the blood path back toward the front of the store again until it stopped suddenly in the middle of the parking lot.

Then the red trail, like the alleged victim, vanished.

Escobedo wrangled with questions. Who was the victim and where did he or she come from? Was the victim picked up or did he or she find a way to stop the bleeding or wander off for help? Was he or she waiting in line at a hospital to see a doctor or, worse, in a place where no one would find the victim until it’s too late?

He knew this much: this was the blood of someone who suffered more than a superficial wound.

“This is serious bleeding here,” Escobedo said. Stab wound or a gunshot, he had no idea.

“We just know whoever it is, was injured badly,” he said.

A look at the store’s surveillance camera revealed nothing obviously out of the ordinary. Patrons like Escobedo moved in and out of the store all morning, and no one seemed to notice the spatters of red that dotted the concrete. The store clerks said they saw nothing. No witnesses came forward. Calls to area hospitals turned up more dead ends.

“Right now we’ve got no leads whatsoever,” Escobedo said.

What could the officer then do? Not much. He wrote up a report, went through the proper channels and notified the appropriate supervisors and detectives. He spoke with a police evidence technician assigned to photograph the scene and collect samples.

Then Escobedo could only wait for word of an update, a witness, one key detail, a trace.